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NEW YORK (AFP) — With nimble fingers and childlike enthusiasm, Danny Cortes recreates the hip-hop-infused New York street scene in miniature. However, what started out as a hobby later catapulted him to fame in the rap world and even netted him lucrative sales at Sotheby’s prestigious auction house.
“We are adults, but we never stop being children,” the 42-year-old artist told AFP. “Who doesn’t like toys? Who doesn’t like miniatures?”
When he speaks from his studio in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, he sits among salvaged items found on the street.
On his desk is a current project, a miniature replica of a dilapidated building facade. Near a brick window hangs a plastic bushel basket: a poor man’s basketball hoop.
“This represents my childhood,” says Cortez, touching the model with his favorite medium polystyrene.
“Everything looks like this: abandoned, empty, lots of drugs in the area.”
From $30 to $10,000
One of his most recent creations is a modest Chinese restaurant with a battered yellow sign and graffiti on the red and purple brick walls.
Standing outside the restaurant—the real one—Cortez, wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap over his round face, smiled and told how New York rapper Joell Ortiz, who grew up nearby The ones who insist on buying this model, say, “Yo, I need that.”
price?
“Ten thousand dollars,” Cortez said, adding, “The first one I sold was about $30, and I’m glad I got $30.”
The artist builds collections based on the most banal urban scenes, “little things we pass by every day” and things we don’t notice, but which together make up New York’s unique urban landscape.
“It just took off”
One of his first iconic works was a rendering of a simple white commercial ice box—the kind that sits outside a corner grocery store, with the word “ICE” written in bold red letters on the side, and is often seen as Covered in graffiti, Cortes has meticulously reproduced these details.
His repertoire also includes a classic ice cream van, like the one in Spike Lee’s 1989 film “Doing the Right Thing,” whose musical bells are guaranteed to send young New Yorkers running.
His work resonates with nostalgia, and he often includes tributes to fabulous local rappers like Notorious BIG and Wu-Tang Clan.
Cortez wasn’t always an artist—he’s worked in sales, construction, and homeless shelters.
But the pandemic changed his life, prompting him to take his once enjoyable pastime more seriously.
After showing his first pieces on social media, his work “just took off,” he said.
Mass Appeal, the art label that works with rap legend Nas, commissioned him to create a ghetto blasting stereo speaker model for an EP for DJ Premier (“Hip Hop 50: Vol. 1”).
In March 2022, four of Cortez’s works were sold at Sotheby’s Hip Hop auction. Among them is a $2,200 ice cream truck.
He also branched out, building a miniature replica of an Atlanta restaurant for restaurateur and rapper 2 Chainz.
“Lots of Variations”
But Cortez’s heart remains in Brooklyn.
“He really captured that gritty, gritty vibe that was where a lot of ’90s hip-hop came from,” said Monica Lynch, former head of Tommy Boy Records and consultant to Sotheby’s auction house. “
Through his work, Cortez said, he wanted to document a place where “a lot has changed,” especially in his Bushwick neighborhood. Now it’s a hip place favored by art types and a symbol of gentrification — but Cortez says he agrees.
“I think it’s good, I think it’s safer, although Bushwick will always be Bushwick,” he said. “There are more opportunities.”
© 2022 AFP